Category Archives: Liz Truss

Tory big beasts put careers on line with aggressive criticism of Truss

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Analysis: Strength of attacks suggests they come from strong belief that frontrunner’s policies are wrong

There has been no shortage of cabinet big beasts willing to place their careers on the line for the failing Tory leadership campaign of Rishi Sunak. Michael Gove, Dominic Raab and Matt Hancock – not to mention Sunak himself – have not held back in their aggressive criticism of Liz Truss.

Traditionally, in the dying days of a leadership contest, some of the animosity dissipates as the likely losing candidate assesses their prospects of a job in a new administration. However, Sunak and his supporters have been vehement in their attacks on Truss’s economic policies, with the strength of their criticism increasing in recent days.

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Liz Truss’s arrival in No 10 ‘could deliver Tories a big bounce in polls’

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Exclusive: leaked Labour analysis says foreign secretary could revive party’s fortunes – but effect may be short-lived

Tory leadership frontrunner Liz Truss could give the government a double-figure bounce in the polls once she is installed in No 10, according to internal Labour analysis.

A memo drawn up by Keir Starmer’s director of strategy, Deborah Mattinson, claimed the foreign secretary could dramatically improve Conservative fortunes.

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Labour surges as Tory fears grow over Truss’s tax cut agenda

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Likely PM’s policies will mean ‘big trouble’, say critics, as Starmer’s energy price initiative boosts him in polls

Senior Tories have warned that their party will suffer dire electoral consequences under a Liz Truss premiership that fails to address the cost of living crisis, as Labour enjoys a poll bounce suggesting Keir Starmer could be on course for No 10.

Amid signs of mounting panic among high-ranking Conservatives about Truss’s economic policies, several former cabinet ministers told the Observer on Saturday the party would suffer devastating losses in blue and red wall seats unless Truss changes tack, if and when she enters No 10.

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Glum Sunak supporters hold out for gamechanging gaffe from Truss

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With Tory members seeming to tolerate a series of missteps, the frontrunner is on course for No 10 – barring a ‘spectacular foul-up’

Rishi Sunak’s supporters are understandably glum, but one thing alone means they have not totally given up hope of defeating Liz Truss. “We’re crossing our fingers for a gamechanging gaffe,” says one Conservative MP who has ended up supporting Sunak after initially backing another candidate.

John Curtice, the polling expert from Strathclyde University, this week put Sunak’s chances of victory at just 5%, saying Truss was almost sure to win unless she “fouls up in some spectacular fashion” in the final stages of the Tory leadership contest.

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Gove backs Sunak and says Truss is ‘taking holiday from reality’

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Former cabinet minister says he does not expect to return to frontbench politics as he backs underdog in race to be PM

Michael Gove has thrown his support behind Rishi Sunak in the Conservative leadership contest, warning that Liz Truss’s refusal to offer more support over rising energy bills and to just focus on tax cuts marked a “holiday from reality”.

In a sometimes hard-hitting article in the Times, Gove said he did not expect to be made a minister again and that many people expected Truss to win, but he believes Sunak “makes the right arguments”.

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Revealed: Liz Truss personally supported cuts to NHS and doctors’ pay

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Article by Tory hopeful arguing NHS ‘cannot be put on pedestal’ shows she fully backed 2009 cost-cutting pamphlet

Liz Truss personally supported cuts to the NHS, arguing the service “cannot be put on a pedestal” in an article in which she also criticised the “inexorable” rise in doctors’ pay.

The newly emerged opinion piece was written by Truss to support a thinktank report she co-authored that called for patients to be charged for GP appointments and doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10%.

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Liz Truss called for patients to be charged for GP visits, 2009 paper reveals

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PM hopeful co-authored pamphlet that also called for doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10% and abolition of universal child benefit

Liz Truss called for patients to be charged to see their GP and for doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10% in a pamphlet she co-authored in 2009, the unearthed document has revealed.

The Tory leadership frontrunner also wanted to see the universal child benefit abolished in the report, which she co-wrote with six other people when she was deputy director of the Reform thinktank.

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UK’s 10% inflation casts doubt on Truss and Sunak’s tax cut promises

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Soaring cost of living is forcing up government spending on benefits, pensions and debt leaving no spare cash to lower taxes

Britain’s first double-digit inflation in more than four decades has cast doubts on the plausibility of the tax cuts being promised by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak during their leadership battle, one of the UK’s leading thinktanks has said.

Following news that the government’s preferred measure of the cost of living rose by 10.1% in the year to July, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said higher inflation would mean extra spending on welfare benefits, state pensions and on debt interest.

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Political strategist calling Sunak-backing MPs to win them over to Truss camp

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Exclusive: Mark Fullbrook having ‘long conversations’ with high-profile potential switchers

A veteran political strategist who used to work for Boris Johnson has been phoning senior Conservatives currently supporting Rishi Sunak to persuade them to back Liz Truss for prime minister.

Mark Fullbrook, who ran the prime minister’s successful leadership bid in 2019, has been playing a key role in the foreign secretary’s bid to win over more high-profile Tory MPs to cement her frontrunner status.

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Liz Truss’s plan for cost of living crisis would lead to ‘moral failure’, says Rishi Sunak – UK politics live

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Former chancellor says foreign secretary’s tax cut plan would provide no support for pensioners or other vulnerable groups

London’s mayor has warned of a rise in shootings and stabbings amid concerns that the increasing cost of living could lead to more violence and make it easier for gangs to lure vulnerable young people.

Sadiq Khan said millions of pounds more were being put into schemes to turn people away from violence. The Labour mayor has been criticised by some for his record on crime.

I am concerned about a potential increase in violence this summer as the cost of living crisis deepens and threatens to reverse the progress we have made in tackling violent crime. Violence, like poverty, is not inevitable and the government must now do much more to show it shares my commitment to building a fairer, safer London for all.

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Liz Truss faces Rishi Sunak in leadership hustings after comments about British workers leaked – as it happened

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Latest updates: leaked audio reveals favourite to be next PM said British workers lacked the ‘graft’ of their foreign rivals

Keir Starmer said the biggest cause of division in Scotland was the Conservative party.

The Labour leader said:

The single biggest driver of division in Scotland is the Tory party in Westminster.

I want to hold our UK together, I want to make a positive case for the UK as we go forward.

I think that this assumption that most people can afford these massive hikes in their energy bills is completely wrong.

I think the government in making that argument is completely out of touch.

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Sunak and Truss rule out freezing energy prices at leadership hustings

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Rival candidates questioned in Perth after frontrunner Truss makes belligerent remarks about Sturgeon

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have ruled out freezing energy prices by claiming it would be an expensive, short-term fix that would fail to solve the underlying problem with soaring energy costs.

The Conservative leadership contenders were questioned on whether they would back Labour’s new strategy to fix the domestic energy cap during a leadership hustings at Perth Concert Hall on Tuesday night.

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Liz Truss cabinet predictions: who could be in and who would lose out?

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Analysis: Kwasi Kwarteng and Thérèse Coffey could be among the big winners if Truss becomes PM

Liz Truss has three weeks before she is likely to walk through No 10’s black door as prime minister, facing a difficult in-tray. Here we take a look at how senior roles could shape up.

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Why politicians can’t resist striking a pose in Vogue

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British prime minister-in-waiting Liz Truss is said to want to appear in the fashion glossy, but she should be careful what she wishes for

Liz Truss, heavily tipped to be the next leader of the Conservative party, would like to get into Vogue. We know this because she asked the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, how to go about it at the Cop26 climate conference last November. Sturgeon said Truss “looked a little bit as if she’d swallowed a wasp” when she told her she had made its pages twice.

“This is going to sound really up myself but I don’t mean to … I’d just been interviewed by Vogue, as you do … that was the main thing she wanted to talk to me about – she wanted to know how she could get into Vogue”, Sturgeon told an Edinburgh fringe event last week.

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Truss and Sunak woo Tory members with lukewarm stance on climate

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Analysis: noncommittal positions of leadership hopefuls on tackling climate crisis may be short-sighted

It’s the driest, hottest summer in 50 years, yet the Conservative leadership candidates appear to be fiddling while Britain burns.

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have barely been asked anything about their plans for tackling the climate emergency in all their debates and hustings so far – and nor have they made it a leading campaign issue themselves.

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Keir Starmer defends Labour’s response to cost of living crisis – as it happened

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Labour leader hits back at criticism saying his party has been ‘leading’ on the issue

Keir Starmer has teased Labour’s package to tackle the cost of living crisis, saying his party would end energy prepayment premiums which he claims would offer 4m households relief on bills.

The announcement, which came in what is reportedly his first tweet this month, follows criticism of Labour’s inaction on the cost of living crisis.

Every organisation has its culture, but it’s not fixed, it can be changed.
That’s what ministerial leadership is about: it’s about making sure that the policies we represent, the values we stand for, are reflected in what we do.

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Tory leadership: Sunak frustrated government attempts to realise benefits of Brexit, Truss allies claim – UK politics live

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Latest updates: foreign secretary’s supporters accuse former chancellor of resisting changes to EU regulation as sixth hustings looms

Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, has used an article in today’s Guardian to propose that the government should halt the increases in the energy price cap planned for later this year and next year and, if necessary, take energy companies into public ownership to ensure that they keep prices down.

Alongside the Lib Dem plan, with which it has some similarities (they also want a price cap freeze, and more money raised through a windfall tax), it is the most radical and ambitious proposal on the table to tackle the energy bills crisis.

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Sunak accuses Truss of major U-turn after she says she will do ‘all I can to help struggling households’ with fuel bills – UK politics live

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Tory leadership contender says rival had previously dismissed direct support as ‘handouts’

Suella Braverman, the attorney general, is giving a speech to the Policy Exchange thinktank on equalities and rights. There is a live feed here.

In a preview of the speech published in the Daily Telegraph, Braverman says she wants to clarify the law on trans rights as it applies in schools. She says:

When it comes to gender-questioning children, we should always have compassion. At the same time, our compassion should never blind us to the harm it is possible to do to children by misplaced affirmation. Many schools and teachers believe – incorrectly – that they are under an absolute legal obligation to treat children who are gender questioning according to the preference of the child. Many are scared of the consequences of not doing so.

I want to make it clear that it is possible, within the law, for schools to refuse to use the preferred opposite-sex pronouns of a child.

The UK and partners have condemned in the strongest terms China’s escalation in the region around Taiwan, as seen through our recent G7 statement.

I instructed officials to summon the Chinese ambassador to explain his country’s actions.

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Liz Truss summons Chinese ambassador over aggression towards Taiwan

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Beijing blames its actions on US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan

Taiwan has become the latest focal point in the fraught relationship between London and Beijing, with the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, summoning China’s ambassador to explain his government’s recent actions over the self-ruled democracy.

“I instructed officials to summon the Chinese ambassador to explain his country’s actions. We have seen increasingly aggressive behaviour and rhetoric from Beijing in recent months, which threaten peace and stability in the region,” Truss said in a statement.

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Liz Truss doubles down on tax cuts over support for energy bills

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Foreign secretary had previously said she did not want to give ‘handouts’ to people struggling with the cost of living

Liz Truss has doubled down on her refusal to offer significant help to people with soaring energy bills this winter, despite a forecast that these could exceed £4,200 annually from January, and rise further during 2023.

Truss, the runaway favourite to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister next month, has already said she does not want to give “handouts” to people struggling with bills, preferring to prioritise tax cuts.

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